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Gary Lupyan’s primary research interest is understanding how language shapes the human mind. To what extent is human cognition, actually language augmented cognition? To answer this question, Gary uses a wide variety of techniques that attempt to manipulate linguistic variables and observe the consequences of these manipulations on putatively nonlinguistic behavior. Gary’s methods include lab-based and crowdsourced behavioral studies, neural network modeling, statistical corpus analyses, and neurostimulation techniques such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

In addition to understanding effects of language on cognition and perception, Gary is deeply interested in what environmental circumstances led to the emergence of language. Language marked a major transition in the history of life by providing a secondary information transmission medium—culture—and its evolution was, as far as we know, a singular event in the history of life on earth.

Gary attended Carnegie Mellon for graduate school, working with Jay McClelland, followed by postdoctoral work in cognitive neuroscience at Cornell University and University of Pennsylvania. Since 2010 he has been an assistant professor of psychology at University of Wisconsin-Madison.